Today’s business conversation is dominated by voices telling us all that, for organisations to survive they have to adopt a digital first customer experience. Traditional channels including print are dead, and door drops have been deader than dead for even longer.

There’s no argument from us that digital channels are essential in people’s online, smartphone, hi-tech day to day existence. And customer journeys have unequivocally changed. No longer a linear experience, they’re far more complex. People drop in and out of their relationships with brands at far more different points and times than ever before.

A place for Door Drops?

But does this mean there’s no longer room for print, and door drops in particular? Are they done for? That’s not our experience. So we wanted to see if our experience was out of the ordinary, or closer to the norm.

And what did we find? Door drops are still helping businesses deliver on their objectives. As a complimentary media channel in a carefully planned integrated marketing campaign.

Take a look at this chart. Data from Neilson shows that spend on door drop activity has been stable over the last 5 years rather than plummeting. Not what you’d expect for something that’s dead and no longer has a place in today’s marketing toolkit.

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What’s more, 2018 door drop spend actually increased 8% year on year compared with 2017. And it was higher than 2016. So there are businesses that know how to get the best out of door drops, and they are delivering. Going back to our experience, we print over 3.5 million door drops each month. All targeted at individuals with a relevant message that you know reaches them.

Targeting

And there are lots of different audiences who respond to door drops. The older generation (let’s not forget we’ve got an ageing population with disposable income!) with relatively more free time are one obvious group for many different industry sectors.

But don’t assume other groups, including those key millennials (don’t forget the millennials, we can’t leave out the millennials, have I said millennials?) are impervious to the guile and cunning of a carefully crafted, on message door drop. Students and young adults living in shared accommodation are great sharers of door drops. They regularly stick flyers (pizza anyone?) or discount leaflets on the fridge or a kitchen notice board. And as a group they’re 75% more likely to respond to a door drop than the average adult according to Royal Mail Research.

And thanks to those digital channels that have apparently made door drops irrelevant, the information they provide has enabled targeting to be more advanced and better than ever. Meaning door drops are more effective than they’ve ever been!

And if it’s ROI you’re desperate to prove because it’s all your CFO demands of you, JICMail was launched in early 2018, providing you with industry standard audience measurement on metrics such as reach and frequency. Here’s the link to their website so click on through, feast your eyes on the insight and evidence and get planning door drops as part of your next campaign.

Then get in touch with us.

Our door drop offering includes Royal Mail door to door, solus, shared and free newspaper distribution. On top of that, we use SMART-Drop, highly targeted distribution planned at full postcode level.

So using a combination of profiling and mapping tools, and working with Experian’s Mosaic, your door drop activity can be targeted to reach the most relevant audience in key areas for your business.

Drop us a line to talk about door drops. Or even drop in!